Steele City Blues: The Third Book in the Hell’s Belle Series (Hell's Belle 3)

by Karen Greco

  Steele City Blues

  The Third Book in the Hell’s Belle Series

  Karen Greco

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  About the Author

  Also by Karen Greco

  Writing as Jillian Sterling

  Acknowledgments

  For Anthony. Always.

  Prologue

  “Goddamn bloodsuckers,” I grumbled, slapping at the mosquitos nibbling on the back of my neck.

  “Who are you calling ‘bloodsucker?’” Frankie asked, giving me a playful shove. Weighed down with over 40 pounds of vampire hunting gear on my five-foot frame, he nearly tipped me into the eight feet of water stagnating below the platform.

  Sweat leaked from the small of my back down into my pants, and I pulled awkwardly on the damp waistband. I glanced at Frankie in his leathers; not a bead of sweat on him. In the ripe heat of Orlando in the middle of August, being undead had its benefits.

  I wrinkled my nose. “I thought the water they used for the rides was chlorinated. This is a little...”

  “Swampy?” Frankie finished for me. “At least they shut the music off at night. Can you imagine if we had to endure that song?” He started humming it. “Iiiiit’s a smaaaall world after—“

  “Zip it,” I said, smacking him in the chest. The last thing I needed was that song on repeat in my head while we searched for the vampire hiding somewhere in the happiest place on earth.

  “You know he picked this ride to hide in because of that song, right?” Frankie asked. “Thought we wouldn’t have the cobblers to endure that tune.”

  “The cobblers?”

  “Yeah, you know. The balls, as you Yanks like to call ‘em,” he said, groping at his anatomy like I needed a demonstration. “Nope, the bloke couldn’t go hide in the haunted mansion. Had to pick this ode to world peace. The wanker.”

  The dark labyrinth of tunnels was a perfect spot for an anti-social, undead creature to snatch unsuspecting victims. The happiest place on earth was decidedly unhappy with the fact that a vampire roamed one of its most popular rides, looking for a meal.

  The happiest place on earth was lucky the vamp wasn’t having much success. No one had died yet, no kid had gotten bit. Only a handful of adults had surfaced with nasty puncture wounds on their necks, which the resort doctors explained away as bug bites. It wasn’t an unlikely scenario. There were some weird-ass bugs in Florida.

  But when one woman came out with the accusation of vampire, a surge of news crews descended on Orlando. The story went viral, blowing up into an international sensation within hours. The talking heads dismissed the “hysterical” woman’s claim. Doctors and entomologists were called in to identify the bite marks. The blame was either weird-ass bugs or woman-in-search-of-a-payout, depending on your world-view.

  But Blood Ops — the secret government agency dealing with rogue elements of the supernatural population lurking around the United States — knew better. And so did this behemoth corporation.

  The Department of Defense didn’t even need to bring us in. The happiest place on earth phoned direct. “Classified” was all relative to how many billions were in the bank, I guess.

  Frankie started humming that song again — that song! — under his breath.

  “Shhh,” I said, desperate to keep the earworm out. “We need to listen for him.”

  “I can’t help it,” he said. “We got here before the ride was shut down. I heard it clear as a bell in the parking lot.”

  I gave Frankie’s arm a sympathetic squeeze, grateful that my human ears were too weak to hear that song when we were at least a mile away.

  The boats that took enthusiastic theme park-goers through the ride were parked in a row in front of us. It was after 10 p.m., and for the approximately two hours since sundown, Frankie and I were standing at the water’s edge, waiting to ambush the illusive vampire on his way out to civilization. There was no way he was sustaining himself with little nips on the audience. He had to leave at some point to feed for real. All the warm bodies in the bustling metropolis of Orlando had to be a lure.

  “Maybe we should get in the boat,” I whispered. I hoped Frankie didn’t notice the excitement thick in my voice. My Aunt Babe had brought me here once, when I was super young. I barely remembered the trip, but it always struck me as one of the happier times of my young, often chaotic life. Not that the chaos was my aunt’s fault. What do you do with your not-undead-yet, half-vampire niece? I had too many weird “afflictions” for regular school — preternatural speed and agility, wounds that healed quickly, a taste for bloody-as-hell meat. She had no choice but to leave me with Blood Ops.

  I itched to get on a ride, even if it was the one with that blasted song.

  Frankie’s body shook in silent laughter. “You’re a flipping riot, you are.”

  “I’m not joking, Frankie,” I said, gesturing to the boats. “He’s nipping at them on the rides. If he won’t come to us, maybe we need to go to him.”

  “Maybe we missed him,” Frankie said. He stepped away from the water’s edge.

  “We’ve been here since sundown. He’s not coming out.”

  “Where are you going?” Frankie asked, raising his voice. He reached for my arm but just missed as I slid into the first boat.

  It rocked back and forth as I adjusted my weight to find my balance. “Come on. I don’t want to sit in here all night. I’m turning into a giant mold spore.”

  “Nina, I am your senior officer...” he started, taking a step away from the water’s edge.

  “Wait, you’re pulling rank?” I asked, then I sucked in my breath as I wondered why Frankie wanted to wait. On shore. “You can swim, can’t you?”

  “Of course I can swim,” he snapped.

  “So what’s the problem?” He didn’t answer. “It’s an amusement park ride, Frankie.” I pointed to the water. “Look, the boats are even on a track.”

  He raised his chin and pulled himself straight. “Bloody hell, Nina,” he swore, putting one foot gingerly in the boat, then the other. He held onto the sides and dropped his ass onto the bench. “I just don’t enjoy rides, okay?”

  “What’s wrong with rides?”

  “Amusement parks are preposterous,” he said, his hands gripping the boat as it swayed from his movement. “And creepy.”

  I drummed my nails on the side of the ride. “You are a vampire, Frankie. And you think amusement parks are creepy?”

  He shuddered. “There’s something about an unmanned mechanical ride moving people that just bothers me, okay?” We sat motionless, in silence. “Bloody hell, Nina, just turn the damn ride on.”

  I looked at the control panel several feet away. “You’re faster then me,” I said. “I’ll miss the boat.”

  He leaned his elbows on his thighs. “You have vampire in you. You’re fast enough to make it befor
e the boat takes off. So come on then. Let’s get this over with, stake this bloody vampire and get back to the hotel.”

  I grunted to a standing position, stepped off the boat and counted the steps to the control panel. Seventeen. I still didn’t believe that my dormant vampire gene could propel me back to the boat fast enough, but Frankie wasn’t going to get off his ass.

  I examined the control panel and wondered if there was a way to run the ride without the music. That song would run in my head for days.

  “Just press the red button, Nina,” Frankie said impatiently.

  I pursed my lips at him and did exactly that. The ride groaned to life, the first bars of that song humming along with it. I raced over as the first boat launched, Frankie white knuckling its sides.

  My vampire speed propelled my legs faster than the average human, but not fast enough to make it an easy step into the boat. Frankie floated away.

  “Make the jump!” Frankie called from his seat. I shook my head. I had been in the field less than three months and didn’t trust my body to do certain things. Like make a twenty-foot jump into a moving target.

  The boat behind Frankie’s was still beside the platform, so I jumped into that one and followed Frankie’s ride into the tunnel. I slumped in my seat, my failure over not trying the jump weighing on me. I wanted to call out an apology, but we were almost through the tunnel and we needed to stay alert for this vampire. The faster we nailed his ass, the faster we’d be on a flight back to the Blood Ops base in Nevada. The Orlando humidity was making my hair frizz.

  The first room of dancing animatronic children was almost enough to put me off amusement parks. With painted rosy cheeks, their bodies spun in time to that song while the pitch black surrounded me. I could barely see Frankie’s boat in front of me, and I wondered how he was dealing with the creepy doll children.

  A wisp of air tickled the back of my neck, and, goosebumps sprouting, I shivered. My head snapped around searching for something behind me. I was met with empty blackness.

  Did the volume just go up on the music?

  Sensing a presence beside me, I snapped my head to the left. Nothing. I was about to call out to Frankie, quiet be damned, when I felt two sharp, thin fangs puncture through the skin of my neck.

  “Holy shit!” I yelled, pushing on a bony chest before scrambling to my feet. The boat lurched side to side. I dragged the vampire, his teeth no longer attached to my neck, up with me by the front of his shirt. A drop of blood — my blood — was smeared down his chin. “You bit me, you asshole!”

  My hand pressed against my neck wound as shock took hold. I’d never been bitten by a vampire before. All I could do was stare at him. Grey crepey skin, bald head, filthy ill-fitting clothes. The vampire was desiccating.

  “Just a taste,” he said, dragging out the “s” sound like a snake.

  “My god, what the hell is wrong with you?”

  Using my shock to his advantage, the vampire shoved me back down. Desiccation be damned, he still had a large amount of strength and overpowered me easily.

  I struggled against him as the seats of the boat pressed into my back. I pushed at his chest, holding him at arms length, while he snapped his teeth at me. I dragged my leg in and pressed my knee into his sternum, hoping to free a hand so I could grab one of the holstered stakes that pressed into my lower back. Dammit! How was I going to get that out from behind me?

  That song continued, louder still, cycling through a different language at each refrain. It burned my eardrums but the vampire hummed along with it.

  “Frankie!” I called out, wondering if he’d be willing to jump into the stagnant water, and ruin his leathers, to come help me.

  The harder the vampire and I struggled, the harder the boat rocked. My back lifted a few inches off the seat from the movement. I could grab the stake if I timed it just right.

  The vampire changed his tactics and grabbed me by the collar of my thin jacket, lifting me up and slamming me back down again. My head lolled over the side of the boat. My hair dangled in the water, its swampy odor filling my nostrils. The vamp pulled me out and dropped me again, jarring my lower back into the side of the boat, my head angled just above the murky water. I gripped his arms, fighting against him to keep my head from going under.

  “Frankie!” I barked again, louder. The mix of stage lights and animatronics cast an eerie glow on the ceiling of the ride. The music kept going. The vamp kept humming. The music seemed to have a hold on him, like it was making him mad.

  A strong hand clamped down on my forehead, forcing me towards the water. He leaned in, fangs exposed, going for my jugular. I sucked in a deep breath of air, then went limp under him, submerging my head in the swamp.

  I cringed when I felt his fangs sink into me again, gritting my teeth as I felt him suck. I fought against my reaction to struggle and forced myself to let him overtake me. As the seconds ticked on and my body remained limp, he relaxed his hold a bit. The water mercifully muffled that song so that I could focus on what I needed to do next. I expelled my air slowly, bubbles barely perceptible on the surface.

  I floated my hand around to my back until my fingers brushed up against the wooden stakes. I wrapped my hand around one and slipped the stake out of its holster. The rough wood felt foreign in my grip. I’d never used a stake to kill before. It was always used on a latex dummy, the rubber and plastic a close facsimile of an actual body.

  With the vampire chewing on my neck, my training kicked in. I lifted my free hand under his rib cage and pushed up with all my strength, lifting my body out of the water at the same time. I hollered in pain as his teeth ripped away from my neck. Before he could react, I shoved the stake into his heart. His eyes went wide and he dropped on me with a thud.

  That song continued as the boat exited the final tunnel.

  I shoved the body off and sat up. Soaked through from my shoulders up, my hair dripped and made a puddle on the bottom of the boat. Frankie stood at the cement platform and watched my boat come in.

  “What the bloody hell happened to you?” he asked, his eyes widening when he saw the body splayed beside me in the boat.

  I ignored the hand he held out to me and jumped out of the boat, grateful to feel dry land under my feet. I marched to the control panel, pulled out another stake from my holster and slammed it into the computer repeatedly until that song warbled into silence.

  The quiet was bliss.

  Frankie looked from me to the staked vamp splayed out in the boat. "You did that on your own?”

  "Well you didn't help me," I pointed out.

  "How was I supposed to know...?" He took my chin and tipped my head, getting a gander at the missing chunk of neck that was beginning to knit back together. "He bit you?"

  "I yelled for you..." I rubbed at the chew mark on my neck and wrinkled my nose at the stench from the water rising off my body. "Do you have Neosporin or something? That water is nasty. I don't want the bite to get infected before it heals completely."

  "When was the last time you had a tetanus shot? It’s healing over fast," he answered. He turned and surveyed the ride. "Funny I didn't hear you. That song, all I heard was that song." He shuddered.

  "You want to finish him off?" I asked. To kill the vampire true-dead, we needed to cut off his head. Otherwise, if we removed the stake, he'd rise again. “Or do you want me to do it?”

  Frankie rubbed at his overgrown black hair, his piercing blue eyes moving back to the vampire. He climbed into the boat and lifted the lifeless body. "Was he desiccated?"

  I nodded. It was hard to tell now that he was staked.

  "The music affected me. Maybe it made him mental, trapped him here or something. He wasn't feeding except for the few nips."

  "So what are you saying? You want to take him in alive?" I asked.

  Frankie stepped out of the boat, his feet light on the cement. "Yes, let's see what Dr. O has to say about this," he said, referring to the head of Blood Ops, who was also an ancient Druid pri
est. If anyone could figure out what that song had to do with this vamp losing his marbles, it was Dr. O.

  "Fine, but you get to ride with him in the cargo hold," I said, my mind already turning over the number of precautions we'd have to take on the plane, not the least of which was getting another coffin to ship this guy. Frankie wasn’t going to share his.

  "Your first kill, in a manner of speaking," Frankie said, mussing my hair with his large hands. "Shall we celebrate? Want to give another ride a go? I’ve heard about this roller coaster, Lighting Mountain or some-such. Was told by Doreen in home office we absolutely had to ride it."

  "But you don’t like amusement parks,” I said.

  “But you do.” He gave me a small shove towards the exit. “Come on now, I’ll snag you a corn dog or something. Maybe we even can try the flume.”

  1

  My 2007 Triumph Bonneville screamed on the downshift, and I lurched forward. The force almost shot me over the handlebars. Frankie's bike engine whirred as he raced to catch up with me.

  A bullet whizzed past my ear, the close call more a matter of luck than skill. It was the first near-miss since these clowns started shooting at us three miles back. Now we were coming up on the Thurbers Avenue exit on Interstate 95, and the goal was to lose them on an upcoming curve of the highway.

  Mia’s long arms snaked around me, hanging on for dear life. She squeezed my midsection hard. For a 70-year-old lady, she had one hell of a grip. I hoped the nervous squeeze was from the sudden increased speed and not a bullet, since over a mile ago, I had sworn to her that the idiots chasing us were absolutely, positively, definitely out of bullets.

  My bike was a steady 130mph, not even close to top speed. The goons behind us were on those crotch rockets — fast but zero muscle to them. We could lose them once we got past Thurbers, the deadliest stretch of highway in Rhode Island.

  Not like it mattered much. Frankie, a vampire, was already dead, so a crash wouldn't kill him. But if I died, I would go from half to full vampire, and honestly, I wasn't up for eternal life right then. Ever since my own mother Leila unexpectedly rose from the dead, killed my aunt and unleashed hell on earth, I wasn't too keen on sticking around forever. The only exception was if I could exterminate as many of these punk-ass vigilantes as possible.